


The Queen, the Girl, and the Dust on the Road

by Thimblerig



Series: The Tenner [3]
Category: Original Work, Sumerian Religion
Genre: Fic and Podfic, Gen, Minor Sound Effects, Myths & Fairy Tales, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, liminal spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23393212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: Day Two - Sacrifice
Relationships: Lady Yekaterina von Schwartzweald (OC) - Relationship, The Queen Bound For Death (OC) & The Dusty Girl (OC)
Series: The Tenner [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680610
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Podfic Bingo, The Tenner





	1. Chapter 1

__

_In her spacious gardens, Lady Yekaterina stands by the entrance to her hedge-maze. Her long fingers touch with care the frondy shoot of one of the cypresses, rigidly pruned, that make up the spiralling walls of the maze._

_She glances up, and seems almost surprised to see her guests dotted about the more open areas. Plucking the shoot with a snap of her fingers, she walks back to mingle among them, her heels clicking on the laid stones of the path._

* * *

**The Queen, the Girl, and the Dust on the Road**

* * *

There is a road that curls through the dry lands that is itself dry, a mere dent of a track pitted, here and there, with the traces of long-forgotten wheels.

A girl sat beside it, in a dirty linen smock. Her feet were grey from the dust of the road, her eyes the simple colour of a pebble in a dried-up stream. She sat there, and watched, as a chariot juddered towards her.

There was a queen driving the blood-red chariot. Her fine linen turban was very white, and the gold at her wrists and turquoise at her neck flashed bright in the fierce sun. Her jade-handled whip, when she used it, curled out into the air and stroked but gently the flank of the great maned lion that pulled the traces of her vehicle and prowled the road on soft clawed feet.

“Where are you going?” called the girl, impudent and nameless.

“Why, I am going to the Land of the Dead,” called the queen, “to speak with the Woman who lives there. It isn’t far.”

“It never is,” muttered the girl, licking her lips. She was very thirsty.

The queen quietened her lion until he stopped on the road, and alighted. “You are very impudent, little girl, do you not know how to speak to your betters?”

The girl looked at the jade-handled whip in the queen’s hand and shrugged. “I’m common. And ignorant. That’s what they tell me.”

The queen laughed and sat down on a jagged rock beside her. “It occurs to me,” she said, sweeping her robes of state around her like a tide, “that the Land of the Dead is not so near as all that. And the day is long to not share meat and drink wine with a chance-met stranger.”

The girl shrugged. A scab on her knee itched and she picked at it, callow thing that she was. But the queen flicked out a napkin and set out items of food and drink, and stared at the girl until she picked them up in her dirty hands. Snap-snap! Glug-glug! All gone.

“Where are you going?” asked the girl, wiping red wine off her lips with the back of her hand.

“I told you, to the Land of the Dead. I must speak with the Woman who lives there, for it is the way of things. There are seven gates there, did you know? When I reach the first gate I will give over my chariot, for one walks into death or not at all. When I reach the second, I will take off my turban of snow-white linen, to join the humble. At the third gate, because the rich die with the poor, I give them the golden bands about my wrists. At the fourth, my rich beads of lapiz-lazuli, for the water that flows under the earth.” The queen sighed heavily, looking at the lion. “At the fifth gate I lose my companion, because we all walk alone in death.” Her fingers curled lightly about the handle of her whip. “In time I must surrender that about me which draws blood. It will be difficult, for there, also, lies my majesty…”

“And the seventh, the seventh gate?” asked the girl.

“Tut!” the queen said sharply, folding up her white napkin scattered in crumbs. She rose then, very proud, very tall, and strode back to her chariot.

The girl stood, in the dust of the road, watching the queen, her head high as thunderclouds, prepare to continue her journey. “But how do you come out again?” she called.

“Oh! As to that,” said the queen carelessly, “if even one person in the land of the living weeps for me, it will be well.” And she flicked her jade-handled whip, the tail of it curling high over her lion’s back, and he took her further down the dust-covered road.

* * *

_Lady Yekaterina shrugs, holding the sprig of cypress between her fingers and nipping it with her thumbnail, so the dark resin scent hovers all about._

_“But who can weep in the dry lands?” she asks, and lets the cypress fall._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // This story takes some elements from "The Descent of Inanna", an ancient Sumerian poem. More details here: https://interestingliterature.com/2018/05/the-first-epic-poem-the-descent-of-inanna/
> 
> (I did take a lot of liberties, mind.)


	2. Podfic

* * *

Click [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N0sQgEa8-_9HdrG5kd841a1m3UkBtXDw/view?usp=drivesdk) to stream or download :-) 

* * *

Format: MP3  
Length: 7:03  
Size: 11.53 MB

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Programs Used: Audio Evolution (Mobile); Logopit Plus; Music Editor
> 
> Cover Image: Cover image: https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Vector-graphics-of-swirling-petals-floral-design/34665.html 
> 
> Music/FX:
> 
> “Simple piano improvisation” by ValentinSosnitskiy - https://freesound.org/people/ValentinSosnitskiy/sounds/431520/ (CC BY 3.0)  
> Music/FX: “Wind singing in the mountain, some night cricket in background” by felix.blume - https://freesound.org/people/felix.blume/sounds/165526/ (CC0)  
> “Thunder Long 1” by Samulis - https://freesound.org/people/Samulis/sounds/242015/ (CC0)  
> “Lion Roar” by Iwan 'qubodup' Gabovitch - https://freesound.org/people/qubodup/sounds/212764/ (CC BY 3.0)


End file.
